New as Hunter

[Kimochi]

G´Day

I am new to this hunter ranged "thing". I was always melee, so i changed my mind and want to try something new.
However, i have read some topics and therycrafting on ElitisJerk and some others sites, and i dont get it. I feel like im missing something. So i am looking for advice.

Whats the best spec for PvE ? Im leveling as BM and i find it easy, but its a little bit hard to control pet and it depends on him, so if he dies in fight with boss it will be great loss to Damage. And somehow i dontl ike the style Survival hunters work, remembers me of Frost DK... Waiting for proc. :/

So, could you help me chose the best and explain it a little (Rotation,Stats etc.) ?

[Rindolor]

G´Day

I am new to this hunter ranged "thing". I was always melee, so i changed my mind and want to try something new.
However, i have read some topics and therycrafting on ElitisJerk and some others sites, and i dont get it. I feel like im missing something. So i am looking for advice.

Whats the best spec for PvE ? Im leveling as BM and i find it easy, but its a little bit hard to control pet and it depends on him, so if he dies in fight with boss it will be great loss to Damage. And somehow i dontl ike the style Survival hunters work, remembers me of Frost DK... Waiting for proc. :/

So, could you help me chose the best and explain it a little (Rotation,Stats etc.) ?

BM Rotation: Sting - Arcane Shot - Aimed Shot - Steady Shot - Steady Shot - Arcane Shot - Refresh sting when needed, cast Bestial Wrath + Trinket/racials/Kill Command/Pet talents whenever BW is up on a boss fight, and try to time it with bloodlust / key points during the encounter (when heart is shown on XT for example).

MM Rotation: Sting - Chimera Shot - Aimed Shot - Arcane Shot (Only if not ArP capped) - Steady Shot - Steady shot - Chimera etc....

Surv Rotation: Black Arrow - Sting - Aimed Shot - Explosive Shot - Steady Shot - Steady shot - Steady Shot - Aimed shot etc... if BA procs LnLoad then cast Explosive - Aimed - Explosive - Refresh sting - Explosive, so you don't overwrite your ES ticks.

I'm too lazy to give you specs, I'm sure someone else will.

[Tricki]

BM Rotation: Sting - Arcane Shot - Aimed Shot - Steady Shot - Steady Shot - Arcane Shot - Refresh sting when needed, cast Bestial Wrath + Trinket/racials/Kill Command/Pet talents whenever BW is up on a boss fight, and try to time it with bloodlust / key points during the encounter (when heart is shown on XT for example).

MM Rotation: Sting - Chimera Shot - Aimed Shot - Arcane Shot (Only if not ArP capped) - Steady Shot - Steady shot - Chimera etc....

Surv Rotation: Black Arrow - Sting - Aimed Shot - Explosive Shot - Steady Shot - Steady shot - Steady Shot - Aimed shot etc... if BA procs LnLoad then cast Explosive - Aimed - Explosive - Refresh sting - Explosive, so you don't overwrite your ES ticks.

I'm too lazy to give you specs, I'm sure someone else will.

OK this is completely wrong from a Surv stand point.

There is no real ROTATION, its a shot priority list

Kill Shot
Explosive Shot
Aimed Shot, or Multi-Shot if you don't Aimed seeing as these shots share a cooldown.
Black Arrow
Serpent Sting
Steady Shot

Also, Interweaving shots in between these Explosive Shots is not recommended for most players; you want to begin the cooldown of ES as quickly as possible, and it will not begin until your third ES is fired.

Meaning Exp Shot, wait Exp Shot, wait Exp shot and then cont. with your shot list.

Open with Explosive Shot, then Aimed, Apply Black Arrow and then SpSting, The use Stready shot until Explosive is off cooldown and repeat....boss gets to 20% Use Kill Shot whenever it's off cooldown.

EDIT: I didn't answer your question, ha, sorry.

I love BM for leveling, and I was kinda sad to see it go at 80 but its just not as viable in a raid. I mean you could raid as BM if you wanted but Surv will give you better numbers starting out.

[Kimochi]

OK this is completely wrong from a Surv stand point.

There is no real ROTATION, its a shot priority list

Kill Shot
Explosive Shot
Aimed Shot, or Multi-Shot if you don't Aimed seeing as these shots share a cooldown.
Black Arrow
Serpent Sting
Steady Shot

Also, Interweaving shots in between these Explosive Shots is not recommended for most players; you want to begin the cooldown of ES as quickly as possible, and it will not begin until your third ES is fired.

Meaning Exp Shot, wait Exp Shot, wait Exp shot and then cont. with your shot list.

Open with Explosive Shot, then Aimed, Apply Black Arrow and then SpSting, The use Stready shot until Explosive is off cooldown and repeat....boss gets to 20% Use Kill Shot whenever it's off cooldown.

EDIT: I didn't answer your question, ha, sorry.

I love BM for leveling, and I was kinda sad to see it go at 80 but its just not as viable in a raid. I mean you could raid as BM if you wanted but Surv will give you better numbers starting out.

What about marksmanship? Is Survival better? I somhow dont like survival just by reading how it works. Always watching for procs...

[Tricki]

Surv is alot more forgiving on gear. So when you're fresh to raiding your going to put out better DPS as Surv.

When you get better gear and, in turn, have higher passive armor pen then MM can provide better dps but they'll be very close.

edit:Missed the last part. As surv you're not just constantly waiting for LnL procs, they happen quite often and even if they don't pop up in a fight (which is extremely rare) its not going to make or break your dps. At first like I said earlier, I was kinda sad to see BM go but once I got used to the new surv (played surv alot in BC) I really enjoyed it.

[Atty]

BM Rotation: Sting - Arcane Shot - Aimed Shot - Steady Shot - Steady Shot - Arcane Shot - Refresh sting when needed, cast Bestial Wrath + Trinket/racials/Kill Command/Pet talents whenever BW is up on a boss fight, and try to time it with bloodlust / key points during the encounter (when heart is shown on XT for example).

MM Rotation: Sting - Chimera Shot - Aimed Shot - Arcane Shot (Only if not ArP capped) - Steady Shot - Steady shot - Chimera etc....

Surv Rotation: Black Arrow - Sting - Aimed Shot - Explosive Shot - Steady Shot - Steady shot - Steady Shot - Aimed shot etc... if BA procs LnLoad then cast Explosive - Aimed - Explosive - Refresh sting - Explosive, so you don't overwrite your ES ticks.

I'm too lazy to give you specs, I'm sure someone else will.

You could not be more wrong.

Correct MM rotation: CS, KS, AS, 4xSS, repeat.

Correct SV priority: KS, ES, BA, AS, SrS, SS.

[Guardias]

You could not be more wrong.

Correct MM rotation: CS, KS, AS, 4xSS, repeat.

Correct SV priority: KS, ES, BA, AS, SrS, SS.

Yeah yer not right on the MM, priority is Kill Shot, Chimaera Shot, Aimed Shot, and then either Arcane Shot or ArP capped go straight into X Steady Shots until Chimaera/Kill Shot are up.

I can't speak as to Survival b/c I have'nt understood it since BC and my Expose Weakness days.

[Rindolor]

TOK this is completely wrong from a Surv stand point.

There is no real ROTATION, its a shot priority list

Shot priority is a rotation, even if the rotation has the change mid-fight due to unequal cooldowns.

Kill Shot
Explosive Shot
Aimed Shot, or Multi-Shot if you don't Aimed seeing as these shots share a cooldown.
Black Arrow
Serpent Sting
Steady Shot

To you and the other poster above, I didnt list Kill shot, because it's common sense to use it, and only is part of the last 20% of the fight.

Also, Interweaving shots in between these Explosive Shots is not recommended for most players; you want to begin the cooldown of ES as quickly as possible, and it will not begin until your third ES is fired.

Meaning Exp Shot, wait Exp Shot, wait Exp shot and then cont. with your shot list.

Unless your aimed shot is also on CD, if you wait for the 3 ticks without firing you are costing yourself dps. So correction, "Interweaving shots in between those explosive shots is not recommended for clickers who can't fire effectively at the completion of the GCD"

Open with Explosive Shot, then Aimed, Apply Black Arrow and then SpSting, The use Stready shot until Explosive is off cooldown and repeat....boss gets to 20% Use Kill Shot whenever it's off cooldown.

If you open with explosive shot, and fire black arrow afterwards, you risk missing a Lock n load proc, as then have to wait for your ES to come off cooldown before you can use for 3 free shots.

[Rindolor]

You could not be more wrong.

Correct MM rotation: CS, KS, AS, 4xSS, repeat.

Correct SV priority: KS, ES, BA, AS, SrS, SS.

How is your MM rotation different than mine, other than the fact you added Kill Shot in there (on lesser priority than Chimera shot? what?)

As for your SV rotation, read above. And stop adding in Kill shot, since its doesn't count for the bulk of the fight.

[Lysah]

A kitten could play MM, so if you're looking for a "starter" spec you should start there. Play without arcane shot (the armor pen build) even without armor pen at high numbers just as practice, your damage should still be fine. You'll have a real rotation then if you keep CS and AiS unglyphed, that is CS > AiS > SS > SS > SS > SS > repeat. Doing this, you can practice getting the feel of the hunter class and paying attention to you and your pet's placement as well as your buffs and abilities during your rotation.

No matter what any e-peenery little kid tells you, MM is by far the easiest spec as it's the only one with a rotation instead of a shot priority. Start there if you want to get an easy feel.

[Mirissi]

The point of the survival spec is to fire as many explosive shots as possible, slowing it down for the small possibility of getting a LnL proc seems counterproductive. Also, not weaving in a shot during said LnL allows you to start the ES cooldown faster, thus more dps.

[Sidorenko]

The point of the survival spec is to fire as many explosive shots as possible, slowing it down for the small possibility of getting a LnL proc seems counterproductive. Also, not weaving in a shot during said LnL allows you to start the ES cooldown faster, thus more dps.

poster above me is right..really if your clipping that last tick your doing it WRONG

[Rindolor]

The point of the survival spec is to fire as many explosive shots as possible, slowing it down for the small possibility of getting a LnL proc seems counterproductive. Also, not weaving in a shot during said LnL allows you to start the ES cooldown faster, thus more dps.

The .0000001 second u gain by not weaving in another GCD with an Aimed Shot in between, does NOT outweigh the dps gained from that aimed shot being fired. The 3 ticks count almost as long as a GCD, so it works out perfect to weave a shot in between instead of sitting there with your thumb up your rear.

[Camthra]

Camthra's foolproof hunter guide.

1#. Don't use melee.
2#. Don't stand in fire.
3#. Autoshot is good in PvE, but not so much in PvP
4#. Never have your per on aggressive unless you're PvPing, and even then, be smart about it.
5#. You never have enough ammmo. Always buy more.
6#. Agi, Hit, and AP are good things. Str, SP, and spirit are not.

There. That's about all you ever will need to know to play hunter.

[Lysah]

The .0000001 second u gain by not weaving in another GCD with an Aimed Shot in between, does NOT outweigh the dps gained from that aimed shot being fired. The 3 ticks count almost as long as a GCD, so it works out perfect to weave a shot in between instead of sitting there with your thumb up your rear.

Wrong. You don't "sit there," the wait time between ES fires during LnL is a half second, hardly noticeable if you time it correctly.

[Rindolor]

Wrong. You don't "sit there," the wait time between ES fires during LnL is a half second, hardly noticeable if you time it correctly.

Why do wrong people always post on these forums?

Here's the tooltip....
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53301
Explosive Shot Rank 1
10% of base mana 5 - 35 yd range
Instant cast 6 sec cooldown
Requires Ranged Weapon
You fire an explosive charge into the enemy target, dealing [RAP * 0.14 + 144]-[RAP * 0.14 + 172] Fire damage. The charge will blast the target every second for an additional 2 sec.

NOTICE THE BOLDED PART

That is 2 seconds that you have to wait before you fire your next explosive shot, or you are clipping your charges and costing yourself MASSIVE dps (yes this right here is why you are bad, and why that other hunter in your guild always out-dps's you, so take notes). This means that each tick is 1 second long, compared to a 1.5sec GCD. If you fire another shot in between the first and second tick, you are only losing .5sec before you fire that 2nd shot, which really doesn't matter since you aren't losing the free shot anyway, and are gaining dps for that .5seconds you ARE using to fire the aimed shot. The wait time for all the ticks is longer than the GCD, and since the first ES doesn't start the GCD, you can fire the aimed shot almost as fast as you can hit it (or click it >.>) :P

In a 6 second span I've fired a, 3 tick Explosive shot (.5) - Aimed shot (2) - 3 tick explosive shot (3.5) - 3 tick explosive shot (5.5) - continuing regular rotation

YOU have fired a 1 tick Explosive shot (.5) - 1 tick explosive shot (1) - 1 tick explosive shot (1.5) - aimed shot - (3) - Continuing your regular rotation

So for arguments sake if every ES tick was 3k for both of us, and every AS was 2k I'd have done 29kdmg in just under 6 seconds
You'd have done 11k in 3 seconds then continued with your rotation which would have netted you another explosive shot at the 7.5second mark gaining you 20kdmg after 3 ticks at 9.5seconds

So for those bad with math I have 4833dps with the numbers used in this example, you have 2105dps.

You are bad, reroll noob. This goes for everyone else who has been arguing with me.

[itan-deathwing]

yeaaaaa so i had to make an account just so that you people dont follow some of the terrible advice about the surv shot priority.

so with the surv spec u wanna fire off explosive shot everytime its available inculding LnL procs. but the problem with explosive shot is that its dmg done over 2 seconds. you must wait yea wait for .5 seconds b4 u fire the next one. i myself used to put aimed shot inbetween but saw an increase when i waited for each expplosive shot. my username is my hunter if u wanna check my gear and spec for validity.

another thing most people forget is that there is a thing called flight time for our shot (i.e. the time from when u shot to when it lands)

[Kimochi]

Thanks for advice. Just by reading i decided that Survival isnt for me.

What about MM ?
What stats should i stack? How much ArPen and Hit? Is Haste useful?

[Tricki]

/shakes head I'm not going to go back and argue with someone who clearly doesn't know what he's talking about (Read: Rindolor )

Thanks for advice. Just by reading i decided that Survival isnt for me.

What about MM ?
What stats should i stack? How much ArPen and Hit? Is Haste useful?

Hit 263 or 8%
ArP is a hard stat to aim for as soon as you hit 80 but if you want to go for it -

ArP Soft-cap: 566 ArPen, if wearing Mjolnir Runestone from Uld Thor HM
ArP Soft-cap: 619 ArPen, if wearing Grim Toll from Naxx 25

Haste is the stat that you're going to get from gear but you shouldn't be aimming for it or stacking it...just let it come from gear and you wanna sit somewhere around 8% and get your Steady Shot to be as close to 1.5secs as you can....but like I said never gem for it.

[Mirissi]

Why do wrong people always post on these forums?

Here's the tooltip....
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53301
Explosive Shot Rank 1
10% of base mana 5 - 35 yd range
Instant cast 6 sec cooldown
Requires Ranged Weapon
You fire an explosive charge into the enemy target, dealing [RAP * 0.14 + 144]-[RAP * 0.14 + 172] Fire damage. The charge will blast the target every second for an additional 2 sec.

NOTICE THE BOLDED PART

That is 2 seconds that you have to wait before you fire your next explosive shot, or you are clipping your charges and costing yourself MASSIVE dps (yes this right here is why you are bad, and why that other hunter in your guild always out-dps's you, so take notes). This means that each tick is 1 second long, compared to a 1.5sec GCD. If you fire another shot in between the first and second tick, you are only losing .5sec before you fire that 2nd shot, which really doesn't matter since you aren't losing the free shot anyway, and are gaining dps for that .5seconds you ARE using to fire the aimed shot. The wait time for all the ticks is longer than the GCD, and since the first ES doesn't start the GCD, you can fire the aimed shot almost as fast as you can hit it (or click it >.>) :P

In a 6 second span I've fired a, 3 tick Explosive shot (.5) - Aimed shot (2) - 3 tick explosive shot (3.5) - 3 tick explosive shot (5.5) - continuing regular rotation

YOU have fired a 1 tick Explosive shot (.5) - 1 tick explosive shot (1) - 1 tick explosive shot (1.5) - aimed shot - (3) - Continuing your regular rotation

So for arguments sake if every ES tick was 3k for both of us, and every AS was 2k I'd have done 29kdmg in just under 6 seconds
You'd have done 11k in 3 seconds then continued with your rotation which would have netted you another explosive shot at the 7.5second mark gaining you 20kdmg after 3 ticks at 9.5seconds

So for those bad with math I have 4833dps with the numbers used in this example, you have 2105dps.

You are bad, reroll noob. This goes for everyone else who has been arguing with me.

I tried reading your post a couple times but it never seems to make any sense whatsoever. The LnL logic is actually fairly simple. Every shot you weave in-between slows down your next ES by a second. So a ES-shot-ES-shot-ES rotation slows the next ES by 2 seconds compared to the ES-ES-ES rotation.